Top floor for mobile connectivity…
Allow me to begin today by paying tribute to the undisputed screen legend Bernie Mac. If it wasn’t for Mac and his gargantuan talent, I’d have walked out of Transformers after 20 minutes. However, with mighty Mac at the controls, I was able to stay for 45. I nearly got my money’s worth. Thanks Bernie, you’ve gone to a better place.
Talking of value for money, how does £25 a month for 14.4Mbps mobile broadband sound? Tempting? Well, if 3 mobile get their backsides into gear, this scenario could be a distinct reality.
Talking with future tech gurus techradar.com, 3 mobile has revealed its plans to upgrade mobile broadband speeds to 7.2Mbps by the summer’s conclusion (which was last week I think). Moreover, developments are already afoot that will double these speeds to 14.4Mbps by early 2009.
Where 3 mobile are going to obtain this four-fold increase in performance from is anyone’s guess. The sensible thinker would assume mobile broadband technologies, being somewhat embryonic, are yet to evolve to their optimum level of development and functionality. In terms of extracting the highest level of performance from mobile broadband connectivity, 3 mobile are trying to be the pioneers.
However, 3 mobile are already trying to dampen expectations, so don’t start waving your dongle around like a lunatic just yet.
The existing 3.6Mbps mobile broadband connection actually equates to around 1Mbps in the real world, so doubling the performance to 7.2Mbps will only result in a real world increase to 2Mbps.
Higher speeds will additionally result in a more ‘sensitive’ network, with more dropouts and network difficulties anticipated as a result. In order to get the most from your connection, you’ll need to be within 200 metres of a transmission mast.
UK Superfast Broadband? It Doesn’t Exist
Bernie Mac would definitely have approved of 3 mobile sorting out 14.4MBps for £25 a month - he was talented and successful, but very cautious with his spending.
Personally, I’ll hold on to my current dongle for now.
The episode of the Bernie Mac Show entitled “I Ain’t Takin’ No Darned Unnecessary Payment Protection Insurance” illustrates just how economically driven the big man was.
Can i say “Maestro”?
I agree with you both. Mac (who, if I’m correct, recently shot to fame alongside Ashton Kutcher in the light-hearted and thought-provoking ‘Guess Who’) would have most definitely approved, nay rejoiced upon hearing the news of these breakneck mobile broadband speeds.
As Mac brazenly addressed the sticky issue of race relations in the aforementioned film, we too must try to emulate the great man and exhibit the same courage and enthusiasm when confronted by this brave new world of dramatically increased mobile broadband velocities.
Correction, Arliss: Bernard Mac shot to fame as ‘Bosley’ in the critically underrated McG magnum opus ‘Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle’ replacing a bemused Bill Murray, who disagreed with Mac’s miserly approach to paying for mobile broadband.
Despite this, the two remained firm friends up until Mac’s recent death, with Bill Murray singing in his own inimitable style ‘Amazing Grace’ at the funeral.
I don’t wish to be the pedant, but he actually sang Charles and Eddie’s “Would i Lie to You” as a duet with Terence Trent D’Arby (a fellow Mac ally and staunch mobile broadband devotee).
Apologies - I’d forgotten about this. Bill was insistent that he get his own way and be able to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ as Bernie’s final will had specified, but then a somewhat inebriated Terence rushed the stage, grabbed the microphone and sang the first verse of ‘Would I Lie to You’. Before he could react, Bill retorted ‘Oh Yeah’ and in the process produced a performance that will be the benchmark for celebrity funeral duets for some time yet.
I doff my cap to them for transcending convention to produce a thoroughly thought-provoking piece. I wept, and I’m not ashamed to say so.
Can we just clarify Terence (AKA Sananda Maitreya) was only inebriated due to the profound shock of Mac’s passing. It has nothing to do with the dissapointing critical response to his new album ‘Big Cronkite’ in Benelux and South Korea.
Is this the same D’Arby/Maitreya who rocketed to fame when his song ‘Right Thing, Wrong Way’ was featured heavily during the end credits for Beverly Hills Cop III? If so, then I can understand his anguish at the passing of Mac. Not only was he an adoring fan of the ‘Charlie’s Angels’ films (whose success was certainly partly due to the stories of backstage rifts between Mac and Murray, which are now Hollywood legend), but he, along with the dead Bernie, was also one of the leading celebrity exponents of the mobile broadband movement.
Like you Dan, I too winced at the news of his recent and poorly judged attempt to woo the notoriously discerning music listeners of Benelux and South Korea, as the poor wretch would already be in a highly fragile state. And I would dread to think of what would happen if he learnt of his new moniker, which can be heard furtively whispered among the pallid throngs of music execs across the land: ‘The Cronkite Cripple’. The man must be at the end of his wits.
It’s been suggested that it was Bernie himself who proposed to Sananda that a move into Korean pop music would “make his ass”. Unfortunately, it proved to be his undoing, and Mac couldn’t live with the consequences of having suggested such a foolhardy manoeuvre. The South Koreans weren’t ready for such highly communist trance-rap, and I think deep down Bernie knew that he should have sent Sananda north of the 38th parallel.
They have much better mobile broadband too.
So off his gourd is Trent D’Arby at (a) the death of Moesha’s very own Bernie Mac, and (b) the stagnant state of the mobile broadband market, he’s elected to pull the ‘Concrete Cronkite’ tour of Luxembourg altogether.
His feelings of bewilderment can only have been exacerbated by the news that it is long standing Trent D’Arby nemesis Andrew Roachford who’s being credited with the coining of the former rock & soul supremo’s new derogatory moniker.
Fortunately, a recent phone call from long time muse Randy Newman (the songwriter Bob Dylan could have been) may inspire some new hope in Terence / Sananda / The Cronkite Cripple (TCC). Apparently, he has plans to launch a new mobile phone broadband provider based entirely in the Tadcaster area of North Yorkshire and needs someone to man the telephones / help desk.
Obviously this is the big man in his element, and should mark a return to form that has proven so difficult since he turned his back on his adoring fanbase in Luxembourg.
This posting on popular gardening forum GardenBanter.co.uk would certainly seem to back up those claims:
http://www.gardenbanter.co.uk/showthread.php?p=809646#post809646
Although I would be the last man on earth to want to question the information posted by the good people at GardenBanter.co.uk, I, for one, am sceptical. The man’s dislike of the smell of fermenting hops is common knowledge, and Tadcaster is a brewing powerhouse with an almost continuous tang that wafts through its streets and ginnels.
He may want to take up residence in the neighbouring Sherburn in Elmet, where he can practice his favourite pastime of taking brass rubbings, as the village has a delightful church that dates from around 1120, and features Norman pillars and a later-built tower housing a ring of eight bells.
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